Model is a set of particle systems with elements of different types. Since real Milky Way contains hundreds of billions stars, there are no way of simulate realistic view of galaxy directly. So here used textured particles with complex materials, placed along structural parts of Galaxy. Some of them are “clouds” of stars, others are light absorbing dust, emitting hydrogenous clouds, individual super-giant stars, etc. Multi-layered complex shaders was specifically designed to retain detailed and realistic view with extreme closeup and inside-the-galaxy views

Renderings by Mental Ray and Default Scanline are similar. Not tested with 3d-party renderers, but no problems expected. Rendering time by scanline is about 1min for outside 1200x1200pix full galaxy view (measured on Intel i7 3GHz, 8Gb RAM, 32-bit OS)